ed! You shall
perish as Achan, the son of Charmi, and as Saul! The curse that has gone
out against you shall not tarry, nor your days continue! For the
Canaanitish woman that is in your house, and for the thought that is in
your heart, the place that was yours is given to another! Yea, the sword
is even now drawn that shall pierce your side!"

"You are more like to split my ears!" Count Hannibal answered sternly.
"And now mark me! Preach as you please here. But a word in Angers, and
though you be shaven twice over, I will have you silenced after a fashion
which will not please you! If you value your tongue therefore,
father--Oh, you shake off the dust, do you? Well, pass on! 'Tis wise,
perhaps."

And undismayed by the scowling brows, and the cross ostentatiously lifted
to heaven, he gazed after the procession as it moved on under its swaying
banner, now one and now another of the acolytes looking back and raising
his hands to invoke the bolt of Heaven on the blasphemer. As the
_cortege_ passed the huge watering-troughs, and the open gateway of the
inn, the knot of persons congregated there fell on their knees. In
answer the Churchmen raised their banner higher, and began to sing the
_Eripe me, Domine_! and to its strains, now vengeful, now despairing, now
rising on a wave of menace, they passed slowly into the distance, slowly
towards Angers and the Loire.

Suddenly Madame St. Lo twitched his sleeve. "Enough for me!" she cried
passionately. "I go no farther with you!"

"Ah?"

"No farther!" she repeated. She was pale, she shivered. "Many thanks,
my cousin, but we part company here. I do not go to Angers. I have seen
horrors enough. I will take my people, and go to my aunt by Tours and
the east road. For you, I foresee what will happen. You will perish
between the hammer and the anvil."

"Ah?"

"You play too fine a game," she continued, her face quivering. "Give
over the girl to her lover, and send away her people with her. And wash
your hands of her and hers. Or you will see her fall, and fall beside
her! Give her to him, I say--give her to him!"

"My wife?"

"Wife?" she echoed, for, fickle, and at all times swept away by the
emotions of the moment, she was in earnest now. "Is there a tie," and
she pointed after the vanishing procession, "that they cannot unloose?
That they will not unloose? Is there a life which escapes if they doom
it? Did the Admiral escape? Or Rochefoucauld? Or